A battle was on the horizon, one I hoped to avoid. In January 2016 I’d received news about my youngest son, Tim, who had been in foster care for 3 years. Social Services was seeking to terminate our parental rights to make Tim more desirable as a potential...
February 2016 and another birthday in prison. When I first arrived to prison it had been March. I’d had an entire year before my first birthday there and I had watched all year, interested as other women celebrated birthdays and tried to make them special....
I think of this as the beginning. I was asleep, maybe dead all my life, before 2016. I was 40 years old. “Mom, I’m not sure I believe in God anymore,” my oldest son Noel explained on the phone. It was October 2015, and Noel had just turned 21. Trying...
“Come work with me!” Jae urged. “We need another tutor.” I shuddered at the thought. “Not a chance,” I threw back. Jae was a tutor in Adult Basic Education (A.B.E). It could be argued prison has neighborhoods – UI (the...
“Mommy? Do you still love us?” Vivi’s little voice sang out across the phone lines. Summer 2014. Timmy, under supervision of Child Protective Services, was in foster care. My heart ached as each month new reports from Social Services arrived...
